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Welcome to my blog

As a writer, my first area of interest is obviously my books, but for my blog I will try to address different writing issues or provide my own tips when it comes to writing or self-publishing.

My blog also includes shout-outs to and recommendations for other blogs or websites, book reviews or recommendation, and a few posts sparked by nothing but an area of interest at the moment or occasionally a complaint or five. 

-J.R. McGinnity
P.s. This blog contains affiliate links, usually to Amazon.

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A review of MAUS by Art Spiegelman

3/25/2014

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That book cover is both attention grabbing and possibly offensive...and in my opinion one of the reasons that so many people have picked up a copy of Maus and opened the book.

For those of you who don't know, Maus is a graphic novel created by Art Spiegelman, the son of a Holocaust survivor, and as far as books that push the boundaries and redefine genres go, this one goes about as far as possible.

It was one of the first of its kind in many ways, perhaps the most important being that it was the first graphic novel to address an issue as serious as the Holocaust. It was also released before it became a trend (for lack of a better word) to release books and movies on the Holocaust. And the way that Maus did that was so new and so intense that people are still talking about it decades after it was first published.

I don't read a lot of historical fiction, especially about the Holocaust (although I did just read Night by Elie Wiesel for the second time and enjoyed it even more than the first) but Maus was a real attention grabber. The extended metaphor of Jewish people being portrayed as rats/mice and the Germans as cats is fascinating to me. The message conveyed by the pictures and limited words is powerful, and the framing of the story is great (read the first couple of pages and you'll know all that you need to about the framing of this book).

It's a tremendous and powerful read, and people are still talking about it today. Schools like the one I am teaching at are even reading it as part of their curriculum.

I recommend this book even if you are not interested in Holocaust literature because it is so interesting and well done, the medium is so different from what we have come to expect, and it is a read that can be done in a couple of hours and still deliver a powerful punch.

I included below a link to an interview with Art Spiegelman which deals with Meta-Maus, a book and DVD which was released in the hopes that all of the talk about Maus would die down some. It didn't work, which is why there is an interview about it, but I feel that the interview, though short and about Meta-Maus, really enriches the whole Maus experience.

I suggest that you read Maus, and if not I hope that you will consider at least watching the interview, because it really is great to absorb even a little bit of what went into this book that made such a difference in how information about the Holocaust can be shared.

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Work in progress

3/24/2014

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Work in progress. WIP. If you're a writer, you know what this means. Your WIP is your new baby, that thing you think about and take care of (and yes, I just used "thing" to rename "baby"). 

In my experience, authors start calling the novel they're working on a WIP if it isn't their first novel. Do we feel less attached after the first one? Do we feel like we are making more "progress" now that we are one novel into our new calling? Or do we feel more comfortable referring to it as "a work" when we know it will not just be that one great thing we did?

Maybe it is simply that one author referred to his next as a WIP and we all jumped on the bandwagon?

But that's philosophy and psychoanalysis. What I'm more interested in here is what you do when you have two (or more) WIPs. I currently have one completed manuscript that still needs to be polished before I can share it (The Bodyguard), a rough-rough draft (I usually go through two stages of rough drafts--the one I write out by hand with an actual pen on actual paper, and then the typed up version of the first) of the sequel to The Talented that I need to finish typing up before going into the deeper content editing that will be the first real draft, and then a paranormal story idea floating around in my head that really should be captured before it floats right out.

So that is three WIPs if you categorize the idea as a WIP and a solid two if you don't, all in different stages of development.

That is a lot of work waiting to be done.

And how do I balance that? I want to finish polishing The Bodyguard so that I can share it, but I'm tired of putting that sequel off again and again. And that paranormal story is just so intriguing that I want to see if I can step outside of my normal fantasy comfort zone and write a paranormal story that happens in the real world.

So what do you do when you have multiple ideas floating around and WIPs to finish? Or are you just more focused on one story at a time and don't have this problem?
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ABNA Update

3/19/2014

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I'm sad to say that The Talented did not make it through the pitch round this year. This surprised me, seeing as the exact same pitch (except for the changed names) made it through the last two years. 


Either the new names tanked it, or it wasn't meant to be. I am going with the latter.


Although I'm disappointed that I did not make it through, I'm just seeing it as a sign that it is time for me to move on to the next stage: indie publishing.


A lot of people will be querying agents now that they are done with ABNA (because as Thomas A. Mays ( @ImprobablAuthor on Twitter) says: if it was good enough for ABNA, it's probably good enough for an agent. I, however, have decided that the self-publishing route is the one for me. I want the control, the flexibility of being beholden only to myself, and also the (near) instant gratification that will come from publishing in the next couple of months rather than the next couple of years.


My first step on this self-publishing road will be running a Kickstarter campaign. Kickstarter is a crowdsourcing site where donors can help you raise money to fund a project, and my project will be funding the publication of my first novel.


Although you can self-publish for free, to do it well you need professional editors and professional cover designs. And I didn't spend years working on The Talented to publish it poorly. I want to produce the best product I can, and I'm going to use Kickstarter to help me do that.


So I need to figure out how much money to raise, what rewards to give, when to run the campaign, and what, exactly, the funds will go toward.


I expect that it will be a lot of work, but when I hold that finished product in my hand I know it will be worth it.


So my ABNA adventure is over, but my Kickstarter adventure is just beginning.
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A Limerick in Honor of St. Paddy's Day

3/17/2014

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A limerick about my FMC:


There was a young woman in camp 

With skills that made her a champ 

She fought with her sword

And never got bored

Save when her leathers got damp 



Please join the fun and write your own limerick (characters not required).

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Emotion in books

3/13/2014

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I could attempt to write a post about emotion in books. I could try to come up with words to express how to do that, and maybe an example of my own.


And it would, undoubtedly, somewhere in that post, say something along the lines of "show, don't tell" because isn't that what is always said these days?


Not that I don't agree, but...


In lieu of trying to write a "real" post, I am going to share what I think is one of the most emotional passages in any book, and it is all telling (literally, someone is saying it).


“I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether Catherine would suffer greatly from his loss: the fear that she would restrains me. And there you see the distinction between our feelings: had he been in my place and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I could have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! But, till then - if you don't believe me, you don't know me - till then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!” 
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights




Can any passage better describe Heathcliff's love for Catherine? The love and the violence paired here is beautiful. Word choice is amazing, and then I could go on a rant about the character foil present, but...


Basically, I just wanted to share this magnificent, emotion-packed passage from Wuthering Heights. All that we need to know about Heathcliff's love for Catherine is in this passage--if we read nothing else about him, knew nothing more of the plot, we would know that he loves her to the point of dying rather than hurting her.


In my opinion, this is the epitome of emotion in a book.
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The Hero's Journey

3/12/2014

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Ah, the Hero's Journey. Most of you have probably heard of it, especially those of you who write in the fantasy genre. The Hero's Journey (often linked to, but not exactly the same as, the Quest Motif) goes back to time forgotten, but is still used today.

Think of a book or movie that you are familiar with? Got one? Now follow this chart and see how it matches up. I'll do it with The Fellowship of the Ring (the first book in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy) because it works and many people have at least a foggy notion of what the book or movie is about.

  1. Starting at 12 o'clock on the picture, we have the hero in his natural environment. This is Frodo in The Shire.
  2. The call to action is Gandalf telling Frodo the Ring can't stay in the Shire.
  3. Frodo doesn't want to leave. (Here is a slightly sticky point--Gandalf is the mentor, but he is also the one giving Frodo the call...so it's not perfect, but what is?)
  4. Frodo crosses the threshold when he leaves the Shire (we'll stick with the movie rather than dragging Hobbiton into this).
  5. Frodo is chased by the wraiths (another sticky point--some of his allies are here by this point, and the wraiths are his enemies, so he meets them all before or at the same time as that first trial)
  6. Gets to Bree, meets another ally (Strider/Aragorn)
  7. First success would probably be making it to Rivendell
  8. By this time we are well into the "Extraordinary World," but it isn't until Frodo agrees to be the ring bearer and leave Rivendell for a fun little trip to Mordor that he really discards his old self.


The chart progresses, but I think that you get the point. Frodo is a hero, he has a call to action--something he must do and doesn't want to. He has a mentor (Gandalf), allies (the 7 companions), and enemies (wraiths, orcs, etc.). He has trials and successes, and has to eventually accept his role. 

He crosses over from the ordinary world to the extraordinary world, and his acceptance of his role in that new world is what makes him a hero.

There are hundreds of versions of this chart, each a little different from the next, but they all have the same basic steps in roughly the same order. Because it works. This is what heroes have to do. If they decided right at the beginning "I'm going to be a hero!" it would be more of a comedy (which isn't a bad thing). And if they never accept it...well, I guess I'm not sure what happens there. But the examination of antiheroes is for another day.

After examining The Fellowship, I looked at my novel The Talented in this light. Adrienne is an ordinary soldier, and she doesn't fight the call, but it is not something she would have volunteered for if her captain had not told her to go. She has no mentor after leaving the camp, which abets some of the conflicts in the story. She has an enemy (or false-allies) in the commission, and friends who support her along the way. She achieves goals, and often achieving those goals leads to the next conflict. Where, exactly, you would say she stepped into the extraordinary world and when she accepted her role are not clear cut.

It's not a perfect fit, not nearly as close a fit as LOTR, but there are shared elements.

Since The Talented is the first in a series, I could stretch the Hero's Journey out past the first book. In that case, Adrienne wouldn't really be accepting her role until the end of the first book (although the elements would still be found in the first book), and the Journey would fit much better spread out across the series. Either way, Adrienne's journey does align with the Hero's Journey.

And looking at Adrienne in this light, I wonder what areas I should shore up and what areas I should maybe drop more (should her lack of mentor be a bigger deal?). It's not necessary to closely follow this Journey, not even suggested if the story does not naturally fall across those lines, but it does provide a new way to analyze my story.



And a new way to plot the sequel.

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The problem with writing YA

3/10/2014

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The problem with writing YA is that the characters are...young.


To keep things legally and morally acceptable, the things that any teenagers set in a modern (American) society can do is limited. Plus I am a high school teacher, so I work with teenagers every day and some of the things they do, which would obviously fall within the realm of YA actions and possibilities since my students are actual young adults, are things that I wish they didn't do.


I don't want high school students having sex, or doing drugs, or making decisions that could affect the rest of their futures. And I know that even the seemingly mature teenagers have a limited understanding of the long-term consequences of their actions.


Some of that is limited maturity, some of that is due to brain development, but it's all real.


So I don't want my YA characters to be in relationships, because I don't think high school kids should be having sex; I don't want them partying, because I don't want to present underage drinking as a good idea to my target audience (because a YA novel is targeted at high school students), and I don't want violence (or at least too much violence) because of that limited understanding of long-term consequences and how actions affect the future.


So what do I have left? Family problems? Friend problems? Homework problems?


The story idea in my head would fall under the category of paranormal YA (and no, not vampires or werewolves, I'm thinking more along the lines of a demigod) and it would work really well in a high school setting because high school is not optional, therefore my demigod would have to put up with being in social situations with the same small group of people day-after-day.


But I don't want his future romantic ventures to be limited to holding hands. And I don't want the outgoing girl he is going to be interested in to invite him to the coffee shop rather than a party. And I really don't want to see him struggling with how to conceal his developing powers from his adoptive parents.


But if he isn't in high school, why does he have to see the same people every day? College is optional, and if your goal job is minimum wage unskilled labor you can go move around pretty easily if things start to go wrong in one place.


So what am I supposed to do? Let the idea wither and die? Make the situation forced so that he is locked into some sort of artificial situation where his presence is required like it would be in high school (and I don't want to turn this into a dystopian novel, so some sort of mandatory college wouldn't work for me)? Should I try to fit my non-YA desires into an acceptable YA mold?


I want to write this story, but I can't figure out how to get past all of these genre barriers. Any advice?
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    My name is J.R. McGinnity, I am a former English teacher with a passion for writing fantasy novels with strong female leads.

    My time is spent immersed in books (reading or writing), hiking when the Midwest weather allows, and watching seasons of old TV shows.

    Follow her on Twitter @JRMcGinnity

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